On this day January 11th:
1775-Francis Salvador became the first Jew elected to office in America in South Carolina's General Assembly.
1861-Alabama seceded from the United States.
1864-Thomas F. Dixon, Jr. was born in North Carolina, best known for writing The Clansman — which was to become the inspiration for D. W. Griffith's film ‘The Birth of a Nation’ The film chronicled the heroic story of how the KKK rescued the South from black barbarism after﻿ the US Civil War
1897-August Heissmeyer, German SS officer was born in Gellersen.
1915-Robert Blair Mayne, Ulster soldier, solicitor, rugby union international, amateur boxer, polar explorer and a founding member of the SAS, was born in Newtownards.
1922-Neville Frederick Duke, British WWII fighter pilot was born in Tonbridge, Kent, England. He was the top Allied flying ace in the Mediterranean Theatre, having shot down at least 27 enemy aircraft, and was acknowledged as one of the world's foremost test pilots after the war.
1923-Troops from France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr area to force Germany to make its World War I reparation payments. The French killed 130 German civilians.
1944-Count Galeazzo Ciano, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Benito Mussolini's son-in-law, were shot for treason against the Fascist State.
1961-Race riot at University of Georgia.
1994-Helmut Poppendick, Medical Doctorate, Chief of the Personal Staff of the Reich Physician SS and Police died aged 92.